Blog

An artist. A lover. But of course, we can’t forget the more concerning quality Xenon has: he’s a virus.

Xenon Naginata, often called “Nagi” or “Father,” is a sentient virus. He is self-aware and has a strange obsession with “bonding.” Whatever that means, it can’t be good, right? Not necessarily. He seems like he’s a nice guy! So why do so many people disagree? I’ll let you draw your own conclusions about him. At his core, he is a monster, but I hope to show multiple dimensions and make him seem like a relatable villain (?).

Concept sketches. Jake, Naginata’s host, is only three feet shorter than him.

At his core, he’s a virus, not unlike a zombie virus or something similar. The sentient virus idea came to me after I played [Prototype] and Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. The thought of something like that fascinated me: a self-aware virus that would develop its own Motus Operandi; these “powers” or “instincts” driving it towards its ultimate goal: either create and bond or destroy and wreak utter havoc. He wasn’t always a virus, though. Originally, he was an original character for Naruto, an anime I was obsessed with in high school.

Nagi from my early days on deviantART. His design has…”matured” since then.

I’ll be the first to admit that his older designs were really embarrassing. I mean…I remember grabbing Spawn’s leg guards when I played Soul Calibur 2 because I thought they were cool. And LOOK at those… belts? I think they’re belts. His character was just as Frankenstein’d as his visual design: a goofy “ninja” who didn’t want to be a demon king and “lost it” at the sight of blood. While a suit and tie might not provide much in the way of flashy design, it certainly presented an opportunity to rehash what I threw down. There was something there, I thought, but it needed to be refined. So I kept changing things. And changed some more. I introduced the concept of Parasites and Xenon’s mental instability and uncertainty of who he was and what he should do. All I know is that eventually, I made him strive to take over the world. You know, as any villain would. Why did I make him want to be a villain, anyway? Well, I’ll be honest, I wanted to make more of an antihero. Maybe not even an antihero. In concept, he and his family are like the eviller evil, darker than dark; that force that even a villain should be afraid of. Of course, that was back when I still had yet to mature both his character and myself as a person. At the end of the day, I guess he landed in the neutral zone. He did eventually get to the other side of the spectrum where he was just so mysterious and edgy and evil; his behavior was sporadic and akin to the random psycho culture or something of the sort. I had a vague idea of what he’d become, but still nothing extravagant and detailed. His hair did get longer, though, and he had a scythe that abused the lens flare filter in Photoshop, which was my jam in high school.

“…eventually, I made him strive to take over the world. You know, as any villain would.”

At this point, I had already figured out that he’d be some kind of “parasite king” that created monsters within his body and released them by some overly violent means. Oh my gosh, he was a crazy psycho anime boy!!!1!11one!!e! A good friend helped me design a monster that he’d create a while back. I wish I knew where his original sketch was but it helped kickstart that monster aesthetic I was looking for. Things were starting to look cooler, but my writing had a very long way to go. Heck, it still does. As time went on, Nagi became more and more devious and evil, but not much more in the way of dimension. I did wind up roleplaying as him and writing stories and blurbs as I tried to map out Nagi’s personality. I started asking myself things like why would he want to take over the world? Then I thought back to the reluctant overlord trope I was trying to figure out. Why is he a reluctant overlord? The answer is: why isn’t he? So I wound up asking more questions and answering them. And every time I responded to another question, his design changed. He could possess people, jumping from host to host. He could turn them into monsters using his essence (essentially his vague genetic material). Then I’d add restrictions. Fine print. He’d keep evolving until I finally settled on the ol’ suit and tie.

“I started asking myself things like why would he want to take over the world? …Why is he a reluctant overlord? The answer is: why isn’t he?”

There had to be more to it, though. He wasn’t just supposed to be an eldritch horror that walks through dimensions and leaves Echoes in his wake. I started with the basics: a virus wants to multiply. That’s its basic instinct. Then, I added another layer. He wants to bring everyone and everything together. I calculated his host’s feelings into the mix, which in turn became his desire to make everyone happy, with strings attached. How would he do that? By infecting them, of course! So I finished the circle of thoughts that run through his mind. Then I had an idea to have both the virus and its host share the same mind space.

Concept sketches of Jake, Patient Zero.

He’s “friendly.”

An old concept of Nata, the alien virus, and Jake, his host.

I introduced the concept of the two bickering with one another about the moral repercussions of their actions (Nagi, Winter 2020). In the meantime, while I did research on what that could entail on the psychological level, I determined that Jason’s strong sense of empathy would add another layer to Nagi’s personality, where he does, in fact, have to figure out what empathy is and how to embrace it. I want to make it a motif or a character arc where eventually, the idea of rooting for Nagi doesn’t sound like such a crazy idea. After all, in the long run, he is trying to protect people and make them happy, right? He just has a very invasive way of doing so.

Design of Naginata (Sengoku Basara).

Most recent design (2018).

There’s something about that smile…

Luke (left) and Nagi (right) as depicted by Faragonart.

My ultimate goal is to create a sickening, possessive monster who struggles to come to terms with his humanity. Perhaps I can achieve that as time moves on!

Big news! TwistedFates: A Rose for Shurinai is on Webtoons! While I’m still working on getting things in order so that I can provide a steady flow of content, I wanted to see how many platforms I can get the comic hosted on. There ARE Smackjeeves and Tapastic…//HUFF but there are so many venues. That’s a good and a bad thing.

A handful of us knows it as that harrowing month of the year when all of the spooks and screams erupt from the boundaries of the mortal realms. I suppose Ambrosia is no exception to the rule. So many people celebrate it in such different ways that you lose track of all of the cultural similarities and differences. While the others view it as a horrid time of year, I see it as an opportunity to get candy. A LOT of candy. There’s also the perk of being able to see the most adorable little ghosts and vampires and… GOODNESS.

I can’t say that La Seri is any bit different from the outside worlds, though people don’t favor me that well. There’s a lot of screaming and facing scrutiny from the lost who think we’re evil. The screams are echoing off the walls and mountains year-round. Here in Oniyex, my children take it as an opportunity to dress as CUTE AND CUDDLY as possible. It makes me happy, and it’s a gentle reminder that my children and I are no different from you, wherever you are. The 31st of October, “Halloween,” as the people of Earth call it, is my brother Destiny’s birthday. He’s less than enthused about it. We’re still going to have a party for him, even if we have to drag him out of his library. On that note, here. Look at how PRECIOUS my babies are! These pictures are from a few cycles ago.

Hey again! Seems like I only bother you all about the site status, huh? I’m still working diligently on restoring the site and the wiki! There’s not much to say aside from that! I successfully made the transfer between site/domain hosts, so that’s good! Right? I also might be posting Megaman X: Hybrid and A Cup of Sugar content, considering I’ve weaved some elements from TwistedFates in there, like the Corruption in Hybrid. This will also include games and stuff! I can’t dream too big as I’m one humble little dork, but I want to start moving in that direction. For now, I’ll still be building things back up and appreciate your patience. This site will be operational very soon! I hope…

On another note, if your browser warns you that the site isn’t secure, that’s just because I have a self-signed SSL certificate and not an official one. I’ll be saving towards buying an official one from SiteGround (some $90) but if you’re down to help out please feel free to DM me for details or consider helping out on Patreon! I’ve posted a transparency report on my blog, which outlines costs for running the site, software, cloud access, and all that good stuff.

Hey, all! I just want to let you know that the next page of Rose for Shurinai is going to drop late. I can’t give an exact date at the moment but I have actually started inking the page a while ago. I want to say it should be ready in the next week or so. I’ll def keep you posted. Have a great week!

Happy August! I hope everyone is comfortable out there. I have some updates for you! First and foremost, if you were already a member and can’t access your account, I HAVE to apologize. After the site was compromised I had to clean out the database and start everything from scratch, which is the WORST. For the record, I did backup everything. Alas, it was too late. //shakes fist

Everything is going to be a little sparse for a while until we get a bigger community going. THEN I can start worrying about forums and all the like.

After a crappy turn of events, I’ve got the site up and running again. I’ve lost all of the work and content I generated for the site, and while the data loss was painful I do see the silver lining of some of it:

Rose for Shurinai is now hosted on this site, which means the communities have been integrated. This was something I’ve aspired to do for a very long time, as I have no real coding knowledge on how to link this site to, say, a site run with a completely different CMS.

I can make the site’s theme as clean and minimal as possible. That way there isn’t too much going on.

There’s also the question of what I’d do if the community takes off, like integrating the pearls points system into a rewards system that will grant prizes and user profile badges and all that stuff. Maybe I’d employ the help of moderators and/or admins. I’ve been known to make huge investments that flop, so um… That will be a conversation for another day. That’s more of a personal thing. In the meantime, I will be restoring the site’s content, as well as setting goals in the Patreon regarding getting one of these dumb 1-year premium subscriptions all the security apps are making a fuss about. I am also coming up with a thank you wall of sorts on the front page for my sponsors and supporters. This and more updates are on the way! If you have any ideas, let me know!